The Parable of a Farmer

(nurturing soil in sowing seeds)

Carl Rogers:
Person-Centered Theory of Personality
 For people to “grow”, they need an
environment that provides them with
genuineness (openness and self-
disclosure), acceptance (being seen
with unconditional positive regard),
and empathy (being listened to and
understood).
January 8, 1902

Oak Park (suburb) Illinois,

Chicago

Father: Walter – a civil engineer

Mother: Julia - homemaker and

devout Pentecostal Christian

Fourth child in a brood of six

Controlling No social
Hard work
parents life
Altar boy interests

Plants and
Independent
animals

Scientific
disciplined
farming
His observations taught him
about the “necessary and
sufficient” conditions for
the optimal growth of
plants and animals.
 University of
Wisconsin

Fraternity (religious
activities in campus)

Religious
Conference in China
 more self-
a more liberal confidence in
thinker and social
moved him relationships
toward
interaction independence
with other from the
young religious religious views
leaders of his parents
1924 - entered the Union Theological
Seminary in New York (minister)

1927 - served as a fellow at the new

Institute for Child Guidance in
New York City

1931 - PhD from Columbia and work

with the Rochester Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children
 Rank’s lectures
In 1936, Rogers provided Rogers with
invited Rank to the notion that therapy
Rochester for a 3- is an emotional
day seminar to growth-producing
relationship, nurtured
present his new by the therapist’s
post-Freudian empathic listening
practice of and unconditional
psychotherapy. acceptance of the
client.
In 1940, at the age of 38, Rogers gradually
conceptualized his own ideas on psychotherapy which
were put forth in Counseling and Psychotherapy book,
published in 1942.

In this book, which was a reaction to the older

approaches to therapy, Rogers minimized the causes of
disturbances and the identification and labeling of
disorders.

Instead, he emphasized the importance of growth

within the patient (called
by Rogers as the “client”).
The years 1945 to 1957 at Chicago
were the most productive and creative
of his career. His therapy evolved from
one that emphasized methodology, or
what in the early 1940s was called the
“nondirective” technique, to one in
which the sole emphasis was on the
client-therapist relationship.
In 1945, he established a counseling center
in Chicago and
was allowed more freedom to do research
on the process and outcome of
psychotherapy.
moved to California to join the Western Behavioral
Sciences Institute (WBSI) and became increasingly
interested in encounter groups

resigned from WBSI when he felt it was becoming less

democratic and, along with about 75 others from the
institute, formed the Center for Studies of the
Person
continued to work with encounter groups but extended
his person-centered method (education, medical field,
politics)

during the last years of his life, he led workshops in

different countries

He died February 4, 1987, following surgery for a broken

hip.
his approach was variously termed
“client-centered,” “person-centered,”
“student-centered,” “group-centered,”
and “person to person”

In our reference book, the label client-centered

was used to refer to Rogers’s therapy and the
more inclusive term person-centered to refer to
Rogerian personality theory
Basic Assumptions:

Rogers postulated two

broad assumptions—

the formative tendency

and the

actualizing tendency
Formative Tendency:
• there is a tendency for all matter, both organic and
inorganic, to evolve from simpler to more complex
forms

• for the entire universe, a creative process, rather than

a disintegrative one, is in operation

• human consciousness evolves from a primitive

unconsciousness to a highly organized awareness
Actualizing Tendency:

- The tendency within all humans (and other

animals and plants) to move toward completion
or fulfillment of potentials. This tendency is the
only motive people possess. The need to satisfy
one’s hunger drive, to express deep emotions
when they are felt, and to accept one’s self are all
examples of the single motive of actualization.
Because each person operates as one complete
organism, actualization involves the whole
person—physiological and intellectual, rational
and emotional, conscious and unconscious.
The need for maintenance is similar to the lower
steps on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

It includes such basic needs as food,

air, and safety; but it also includes the tendency to
resist change and to seek the status quo.

The conservative nature of maintenance needs is

expressed in people’s desire to protect their
current, comfortable self-concept. People fight
against new ideas;they distort experiences that do
not quite fit; they find change painful and growth
frightening.
Even though people have a strong desire
to maintain the status quo, they are
willing to learn and to change. This need
to become more, to develop, and to
achieve growth is called enhancement.

The need for enhancing the self is seen

in people’s willingness to learn things
that are not immediately rewarding.
- a human’s actualization
tendency is realized only under
certain conditions

- specifically, people must be

involved in a relationship with a
partner who is congruent,
or authentic, and who
demonstrates empathy and
unconditional positive regard.
Rogers contended that whenever congruence,
unconditional positive regard, and empathy are present in
a relationship, psychological growth will invariably
occur.

For this reason, he regarded these three conditions as

both necessary and sufficient conditions for becoming a
fully functioning or self-actualizing person.

Although people share the actualizing tendency with

plants and other animals, only humans
have a concept of self and thus a potential for self-
actualization.
The Self and Self-Actualization

According to Rogers , infants begin to

develop a vague concept of self when a
portion of their experience becomes
personalized and differentiated in
awareness as “I” or “me” experiences.
They then begin to evaluate experiences
as positive or negative.
self-actualization Self-actualization
tendency

Conscious and Conscious

unconscious

Organismic Self as perceived in

experiences awareness
(physiological and
cognitive)
Rogers (1959)
postulated two self
subsystems,
the self-concept and
the ideal self.
the self-concept the ideal self,
includes all those defined as one’s
aspects of one’s view of self as
being and one’s one wishes to be.
experiences that The ideal self
are perceived in contains all those
awareness (though attributes, usually
not always positive, that
accurately) by the people aspire to
individual possess
 A wide gap between the ideal self and the
self-concept indicates incongruence and an
unhealthy personality. Psychologically
healthy individuals perceive little
discrepancy between their self-concept and
what they ideally would like to be.
 Congruence

Ideal Self Self-image

 Incongruence

Ideal Self Self-image

Awareness

Without awareness the self-concept and the

ideal self would not exist. Rogers
defined awareness as “the symbolic
representation (not necessarily in verbal
symbols) of some portion of our experience”.

He used the term synonymously

with both consciousness and symbolization.
Levels of Awareness
Rogers (1959) recognized three levels of awareness.

First, some events are experienced

below the threshold of awareness and are either ignored or denied.

Second, that some experiences are accurately

symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure.
Such experiences are both nonthreatening
and consistent with the existing self-concept.

A third level of awareness involves experiences

that are perceived in a distorted
form. When our experience is not consistent
with our view of self, we reshape
or distort the experience so that it can be
assimilated into our existing self-concept.
Denial of Positive Experiences
many people have difficulty accepting genuine compliments
and positive feedback, even when deserved.

Compliments, even those genuinely dispensed, seldom

have a positive influence on the self-concept of the
recipient.

They may be distorted because the person distrusts the

giver, or they may be denied because the recipient does not
feel deserving of them; in all cases, a compliment
from another also implies the right of that person to
criticize or condemn, and thus the compliment carries an
implied threat .
Becoming a Person
Rogers discussed the processes necessary to becoming a
person.

First, an individual
must make contact—positive or negative—with another
person. This contact is the minimum experience necessary
for becoming a person.

- the person develops a need to be loved, liked, or accepted

by another person, a need that Rogers (1959) referred to as
positive regard.

If we perceive that others, especially significant others, care

for, prize, or value us, then our need to receive positive
regard is at least partially satisfied.
Barriers to Psychological Health

Not everyone becomes a

psychologically healthy person.

- most people experience

conditions of worth, incongruence,
defensiveness, and disorganization.
Conditions of Worth
Instead of receiving unconditional positive regard,
most people receive conditions of worth;
that is, they perceive that their parents, peers, or
partners love and accept them only if they meet
those people’s expectations and approval.
Defensiveness is the protection of the self-concept against
anxiety and threat by the denial or distortion of experiences
inconsistent

With distortion, we misinterpret an experience in

order to fit it into some aspect of our self-
concept. We perceive the experience in
awareness, but we fail to understand its true
meaning.

With denial, we refuse to perceive an experience

in awareness, or at least we keep some
aspect of it from reaching symbolization.
Psychotherapy
- Like person-centered theory, the client-centered
counseling approach can be stated in an if-then fashion.

- If the conditions of therapist congruence, unconditional

positive regard, and empathic listening are present in a
client-counselor relationship, then the process of therapy
will transpire.

- If the process of therapy takes place, then

certain outcomes can be predicted.

- Rogerian therapy, therefore, can be viewed in terms of

conditions, process, and outcomes.
Counselor Congruence

- The first necessary and sufficient condition

for therapeutic change is a congruent
therapist.

- Congruence exists when a person’s

organismic experiences are matched by an
awareness of them and by an ability and
willingness to openly express these. To be
congruent means to be real or genuine, to be
whole or integrated, to be what one truly is.
- Empathy should not be confused with sympathy. The latter term
suggests a feeling for a client, whereas empathy connotes a feeling
with a client.

- Sympathy is never therapeutic, because it stems from external

evaluation and usually leads to clients’ feeling sorry for themselves.
Also, empathy does not mean that a therapist has the same feelings
as the client. Rather, a therapist is experiencing the depth of the
client’s feeling while permitting the client to be a separate person

- A therapist has an emotional as well as a cognitive reaction to a

client’s feelings, but the feelings belong to the client, not the
therapist.

-A therapist does not take ownership of a client’s experiences but is

able to convey to the client an understanding of what it means to be
the client at that particular moment (Rogers, 1961).
Key Terms and Concepts:
• The formative tendency states that all matter, both
organic and inorganic,
tends to evolve from simple to more complex forms.

• Humans and other animals possess an

actualization tendency: that is, the
predisposition to move toward completion or
fulfillment.

• Self-actualization develops after people evolve a

self-system and refers to
the tendency to move toward becoming a fully
functional person.
• An individual becomes a person by making contact with a
caregiver whose positive regard for that individual fosters
positive self-regard.

• Barriers to psychological growth exist when a person

experiences conditions of worth, incongruence,
defensiveness, and disorganization.

• Conditions of worth and external evaluation lead to

vulnerability, anxiety, and threat and prevent people from
experiencing unconditional positive regard.

• Incongruence develops when the organismic self and the

perceived self do not match.
• When the organismic self and perceived self are
incongruent, people will become defensive and use
distortion and denial as attempts to reduce
incongruence.

• People become disorganized whenever distortion and

denial are insufficient to block out incongruence.

• Vulnerable people are unaware of their incongruence

and are likely to become anxious, threatened, and
defensive.
• When vulnerable people come in contact with
a therapist who is congruent and who has
unconditional positive regard and empathy, the
process of personality change begins.

• This process of therapeutic personality change

ranges from extreme defensiveness, or an
unwillingness to talk about self, to a final stage
in which clients become their own therapists
and are able to continue psychological growth
outside the therapeutic setting.
• The basic outcomes of client-centered
counseling are congruent clients who are
open to experiences and who have no
need to be defensive.

• Theoretically, successful clients will

become persons of tomorrow, or fully
functioning persons.
Rogers firmly held that, although
much of our behavior is determined by heredity and
environment, we have within
us the capacity to choose and to become self-
directed.

Under the most nurturant and

favorable conditions, people will become more
self-aware, trustworthy, congruent,
and self-directed, qualities that will move them
toward becoming persons of tomorrow.